The Alliance Process: Sales Prospecting Techniques That Drives 60X Results

Sales prospecting techniques are often the linchpin between sales teams that struggle and those that consistently crush their targets. In this episode, legendary sales consultant and author Mike LaRusso reveals why most businesses are stuck using outdated methods—and how there’s a smarter, more human approach to landing high-quality leads.

Drawing on four decades in the field, LaRusso shares unique insights from his “Sales Professional Survival Guide,” including the critically underutilized alliance process. This referral-based system prioritizes intuition, relationships, and strategic networking. Suppose you’re tired of endless cold calls and low-yield prospecting routines. In that case, this conversation will open your eyes to a results-driven, data-informed methodology that transforms the sales process from the inside out.

Read on for actionable takeaways and fresh ideas that will help you move beyond the basics and, finally, start filling your pipeline with truly promising opportunities.

Watch the episode

About Mike LaRusso

Mike LaRusso has dedicated his career to changing the way organizations view sales and their salespeople. Drawing from years of experience, Mike noticed a striking contradiction in many companies: while sales drive the business, salespeople rarely get recognized as the most important employees. This negative perception at the top leads to strategies rooted in control and micromanagement. Mike believes that true success comes when leadership starts with a positive view of sales, building processes on trust rather than control. Throughout his journey, Mike’s mission has been to inspire leaders to appreciate and empower their sales teams, fostering cultures where trust and respect drive results.

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Why Traditional Sales Prospecting Techniques Fail 60 Times More Often Than This Method

If your sales team is still cold calling, they’re wasting 59% of their productive time.

That’s according to Mike LaRusso, author of “The Sales Professional Survival Guide: A Blueprint for Tactical Prospecting” and a sales consultant with four decades of experience across various industries.

In a revealing conversation on the Predictable B2B Success podcast with Vinay Koshy, LaRusso shared that his “Alliance Process” sales prospecting technique is 60 times more productive than traditional cold calling methods.

“My methods are, at their peak, almost 60 times more productive in terms of gaining an appointment. That’s 16,000% more productive if you use the Alliance process.”

For B2B founders and sales leaders struggling with revenue growth, this statistic should stop you in your tracks.

But let’s take a step back. If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with traditional sales prospecting techniques and their limitations. Perhaps you’ve even implemented some modern variants, automating cold outreach or using social selling.

Yet, many B2B companies still struggle with inefficient prospecting, low conversion rates, and wasted sales hours. The old methods aren’t working, but what’s the alternative?

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore why traditional sales prospecting techniques are failing your business and how LaRusso’s Alliance Process offers a revolutionary approach that can transform your revenue generation.

Table of Contents

1. The Current State of Sales Prospecting
2. Why Traditional Sales Prospecting Techniques Fail
3. The Alliance Process: A Superior Sales Prospecting Technique
4. Key Metrics to Measure Prospecting Success
5. The Role of Leadership in Sales Transformation
6. How to Implement the Alliance Process in Your Business
7. Automation and the Future of Sales Prospecting
8. Aligning Sales Processes with Revenue Goals
9. Key Takeaways

The Current State of Sales Prospecting

Traditional sales prospecting techniques have been around for decades, with minor adjustments as technology evolves. Think cold calling, but now with automation. Think door-to-door, but now via LinkedIn messages.

LaRusso describes the current state bluntly:

“The only difference now is they’re automated. So IT has taken over the dumb methods. Nothing has really changed except it helps IT companies.”

The data supports this assessment. According to a study by RAIN Group, only 24% of sales emails are opened, and only 2% of cold calls result in an appointment. Meanwhile, 84% of B2B decision-makers start the buying process with a referral.

Despite these numbers, many B2B companies continue to rely on:

1. High-volume cold calling
2. Mass email campaigns
3. Social media connection requests
4. Generic LinkedIn outreach
5. Trade show booth collection

All of these sales prospecting techniques share a common flaw: they’re based on randomization rather than targeted relationship building.

Why Traditional Sales Prospecting Techniques Fail

The Productivity Problem

The fundamental issue with traditional sales prospecting techniques is their inefficiency. LaRusso quantifies this with striking clarity:

“Cold calling is roughly $3,040 per appointment per hour of work, whereas my way, it’s $12 for prospecting.”

That’s a 253x difference in cost efficiency!

The math is simple but devastating. LaRusso explains:

“If it takes me all day to make a hundred calls to get a 1% success rate, one appointment, I can’t make more that day to increase the ratio.”

Here’s what this means in practical terms:

• Traditional cold calling: 1 appointment per 8 hours of work (0.125 appointments/hour)
• Traditional cold calling conversion rate: 10%
• Resulting sales metric: 0.0125 sales per hour

With such poor metrics, it’s no wonder sales teams struggle to hit targets.

The Trust Barrier

Beyond mere efficiency, traditional sales prospecting techniques fail because they force salespeople to overcome significant barriers:

“When you prospect the normal way, you inherit about a dozen obstacles. Part of it is trust, getting by the gatekeeper, and you’ve heard them all.”

These obstacles include:

• Lack of trust
• Gatekeepers
• No prior relationship
• No context for the conversation
• Competing with dozens of similar outreach attempts
• Decision-maker’s natural resistance to “being sold to”

As B2B buyers become more sophisticated and protective of their time, these barriers grow higher.

The Leadership Disconnect

Perhaps most importantly, LaRusso identifies a systemic problem in how sales is perceived and managed:

“The problem with sales in the professional realm is it’s a paradox because sales is the most important function within a business. The actual concept of sales, bringing money on, etc. And so it’s the most important and quite probably the least respected at the same time.”

This paradox leads to counterproductive management practices:

“Things are put into place to control that process, which inhibits it. And that becomes a vicious cycle of control and babysitting and trying to manipulate activity and all these other ancillaries where leadership thinks they’re managing things, but they’re really inhibiting things.”

The result is a sales culture focused on activity metrics (such as calls made and emails sent) rather than effectiveness (quality conversations and appointments with qualified prospects).

The Alliance Process: A Superior Sales Prospecting Technique

LaRusso’s Alliance Process represents a fundamental shift in how B2B sales teams should approach prospecting. Instead of relying on randomized outreach, it focuses on building strategic relationships with business development-minded individuals who can provide high-quality introductions.

The Foundation: Tactical Prospecting

“The most important process in sales is prospecting. Everything is dependent on that, whether anyone believes it or not. 90% of making a sale is the prospecting, and 10% is really just the negotiation.”

The Alliance Process begins with what LaRusso calls “tactical prospecting” – identifying people with a business development mindset.

“You’ve run into people with a business development mindset in your daily life. People who just have the ability to identify and negotiate and handle opportunities. They may even give them to you as references or referrals. It just it’s in their nature.”

Instead of cold calling strangers, you identify and categorize individuals who naturally connect businesses and opportunities.

Forming Lead-Generating Relationships

The next level is establishing what LaRusso calls “lead generating relationships” with these contacts:

“You decide through the equations that these people are good business development contacts. They have a good mindset. Now what type of alliance partner are they? There’s five categories for them, and you determine according to certain metrics which one they go in, and that helps you determine how to interact with them to generate leads.”

These allies become your prospecting network, providing qualified introductions to potential clients.

The Power of Access vs. Randomization

The crucial advantage of the Alliance Process is access to pre-qualified prospects:

“Instead of randomization, you want to get access to the contacts in an ally’s brain. That’s the big difference.”

LaRusso illustrates this with a compelling example:

“I’ve worked with other sales professionals, and there was one in particular who was really having a tough time. He was there for three months, couldn’t get a single appointment, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be fired. I said, ‘Look, let me make an extreme example to show you what you should be doing. If the manager walked in today and said to you this morning, you have thirty minutes to get one appointment or you’re fired – what would you do? Would you send out emails? Would you call cold?’ And I said, ‘No. You would call people you know.'”

This human nature of leveraging relationships is at the core of the Alliance Process:

“It’s networking on steroids because familiarity breeds comfort. They’re handing you leads that are able to buy, want the product, and are already vouched for you because they were handed to you by somebody they know. And it makes all the difference in the world.”

Eliminating Traditional Obstacles

One of the most powerful aspects of the Alliance Process is how it removes the typical barriers to sales:

“When you do it through the alliance process, all of that is eliminated because you’re vouched for by the reference. They want to see you because they know about your product through the reference and want the product. They’re able to buy. The only trust aspect is with the product. They trust you. They trust the organization because you’ve been vouched for.”

This pre-established trust significantly alters the sales dynamic, resulting in substantially higher conversion rates.

Key Metrics to Measure Prospecting Success

LaRusso emphasizes measuring prospecting by the right metrics:

“The time it takes to gain an appointment and then the closing ratio of that appointment. Those are the key ones.”

He contrasts traditional metrics with Alliance Process metrics:

Traditional Cold Calling:

• Time to gain one appointment: 8 hours
• Closing ratio: 10%
• Metric value: 0.0125

Alliance Process:

• Time to gain one appointment: 20 minutes (1/3 hour)
• Closing ratio: 65%
• Metric value: 1.99

This explains the “60 times more productive” claim – it’s a genuine mathematical comparison of effectiveness.

LaRusso recommends evaluating prospecting methods by what you can accomplish in one hour:

“I measure things by what am I accomplishing within one hour of prospecting because that’s all that matters to me. I can tell within an hour whether something I’m doing is productive or not.”

This focus on time-based efficiency should reshape how B2B sales teams evaluate their prospecting efforts.

The Role of Leadership in Sales Transformation

According to LaRusso, sales leadership is “100%” responsible for improving prospecting effectiveness. The key issue is trust versus control:

“If leadership starts with a negative view of sales, the sales profession, the people, then all of the strategies and processes are going to be based on control. They’re managing them because they feel they have to micromanage. Now if leadership starts with a positive view of sales, then it’s based on trust.”

This difference in perspective cascades throughout the organization:

“If you had trust, and trust is a generic term, but if you allow them to do what they can do or even build off of that, then they’re doing what their talent brings to the forefront.”

For C-suite executives and founders, LaRusso suggests a focus on analytical data to drive change:

“Creating the analytics is very helpful because EVPs and higher, they’re dying to see some of the cost-effective aspects of their sales.”

When presented with the dramatic cost differentials ($3,040 vs. $12 per appointment), executives typically respond with keen interest:

“If I sit in front of a CEO, they’re going to look at this and say, either you’re full of it or tell me more. I gotta see why.”

LaRusso notes that senior executives are often more receptive to new approaches than mid-level sales managers, who may be invested in traditional methods.

How to Implement the Alliance Process in Your Business

Implementing the Alliance Process doesn’t require a gradual transition – LaRusso describes it as “like flipping a switch” with “a positive disruption in revenue.”

Here’s a simplified implementation plan based on LaRusso’s methodology:

1. Identify Business Development Mindset

Begin by identifying individuals with a natural inclination towards business development. These are individuals who:

• Naturally connect opportunities and people
• Think in terms of mutual benefit
• Already make referrals and connections
• Understand business relationships

2. Categorize Alliance Partners

LaRusso describes five categories of alliance partners based on their mindset strength:

“There’s five categories of alliance allies. And determining on their mindset strength, that’s the one you put them in. And what it is, instead of nurturing, it’s more of you’re treating them the same way you would treat making a sale.”

The categories range from “passive allies” (one-time referrers) to “partner allies” (strongest relationship):

“A passive ally has the weakest mindset, so they’re only good for one shot. But you keep them in your mind. So I’m dealing with them differently than a partner ally, which is the strongest as a human being, not a business, where I could just say, ‘Listen, I’m selling widgets now. What do you think?’ And they’ll hit me with five, six, seven potential customers who could use it.”

3. Use the “Anchor Seeding” Technique

To establish productive alliance relationships, LaRusso recommends a technique called “anchor seeding and counter weighing”:

“Once I establish a relationship with an ally, I anchor seed the relationship, meaning I give them a lead first that can help them because that does two things. It cements the relationship, but also it’s a monitoring tool to see, are they going to counterweigh and offer me in kind?”

This approach tests the reciprocity of the relationship while building trust.

4. Track and Measure Results

Implement LaRusso’s metrics to track the effectiveness of the Alliance Process:

• Time spent per appointment generated
• Closing ratio of appointments
• Cost per appointment
• Return on time invested

5. Adjust Team Structure and Compensation

As the Alliance Process takes hold, sales leadership should consider adjusting:

• Compensation structures to reward quality over quantity
• Territory management based on network strength
• Performance metrics that reflect the new methodology

Automation and the Future of Sales Prospecting

While the Alliance Process is relationship-based, LaRusso sees a role for technology in its future implementation. He describes a planned application that would:

“Automatically scan each other’s contact database within the smartphone or within their database. And then it links it up. It’s like a dating app for businesses. It’ll match it up by best, not as best, least best, all the way down the line. But what it does next is it’ll show you who’s the perfect match, and then it can also, since it’s a communication device, it can also reach out and make the initial introduction.”

LaRusso believes AI could also transform sales management:

“Creating an AI sales manager that could be carried around in a sales professional’s phone. This way, it’s ‘Okay, what is the prospecting method? Here are some of the basics.’ It’ll tell you what the metric is and then tell you how to overcome that metric by changing up.”

This technology would guide without the limitations of traditional management:

“This way, you don’t have to deal with the leadership that’s just making a living off of you knocking on doors.”

For B2B companies, the lesson is clear: embrace technology that enhances relationship-building rather than simply automating old, inefficient methods.

Aligning Sales Processes with Revenue Goals

A critical insight from LaRusso’s methodology is the need to align sales processes with revenue goals. Traditional approaches often create misalignment:

The Sales Cycle Mismatch

“The sales cycle of the product has to more closely match the revenue period, the quota period, where most quota periods, the revenue target are monthly. But if I have a six-month sales cycle, you can’t judge my performance because it’s going to be crazy.”

This mismatch leads to what LaRusso calls a “sawtooth” pattern:

“They’ll show me a graph of my sales. And month to month, it may go up and down and up, and it looks like the teeth of a saw. And they’ll always say, ‘You had a good month and then you got lazy, and you didn’t do anything the second month.’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not the case. This took up some time to rebuild the pipeline.'”

Commitments vs. Quotas

LaRusso suggests replacing rigid quotas with commitment-based targets:

“I wouldn’t necessarily have a revenue target. I would have a commitment. Okay? What do you think you’re going to do for me this month? And then because the one who’s got ten years of tenure, you should have a higher commitment to me than this person. And that works wonders more than a quota.”

This approach reduces counterproductive behaviors:

“When you have quota, then you have cheating. You have fudging. You have sandbagging. It’s everything you do to manipulate the numbers.”

Matching Prospecting Time to Success Rate

LaRusso offers a practical guideline for time allocation:

“You should only use the prospecting methods the amount of time equal to their success rate. If you’re telling me to do something that only succeeds 1% of the time and I’m only doing that 1% of the time, then it means I shouldn’t even be focusing on it at all.”

This principle ensures that sales teams allocate their time effectively:

“So you’re not going to come up with a strategy to do something ten minutes of the month. It’s going to be, ‘What the hell? I’m standing next to this account. I might as well go knock on the door.’ I’m going to focus on the 60 times success rate and build it.”

For B2B companies, particularly those with complex sales cycles, these alignment principles can dramatically improve both forecasting accuracy and actual sales performance.

Key Takeaways

The revolutionary Alliance Process sales prospecting technique offers B2B companies a pathway to dramatically improved sales performance:

1. Traditional prospecting methods are fundamentally inefficient – cold calling and similar techniques yield extremely low returns on time invested.
2. The Alliance Process leverages existing business relationships – by identifying and categorizing allies with a business development mindset, sales professionals can access pre-qualified prospects.
3. The metrics prove the difference – LaRusso’s method is demonstrably 60 times more effective than traditional approaches.
4. Leadership mindset is crucial – sales transformations begin with leadership’s willingness to trust sales professionals rather than control them.
5. Technology should enhance relationships, not replace them – the future of sales prospecting lies in tools that facilitate meaningful business connections.
6. Alignment between sales processes and revenue goals is essential – quotas, metrics, and time allocation should reflect the realities of the sales cycle.

As LaRusso puts it:

“The prospecting piece is the most important piece in sales, and it is the least understood, the least taught, and the most damaging.”

By embracing the Alliance Process and its underlying principles, B2B companies can enhance their sales effectiveness, significantly reduce their cost per acquisition, and foster sustainable revenue growth.

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At Sproutworth, we help B2B brands develop educational email courses that nurture prospects into customers. Our methodology focuses on building trust and establishing expertise, much like LaRusso’s Alliance Process. To learn how we can help your sales team convert more prospects through education-based marketing, contact us today.

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Some areas we explore in this episode include:

• Mike’s sales background – Starting at age 16 and his extensive industry experience.
• Intuition in sales and formal methodology – Turning intuition into a structured methodology.
• Problems with traditional sales leadership – How leadership mindsets inhibit sales success.
• Importance of prospecting – Why prospecting is the foundation of sales.
• Using data analytics and systems – Applying metrics and analytics to sales processes.
• The Alliance Process – Building and leveraging alliances for better lead generation.
• Impact of automation and AI – How automation is changing prospecting and SDR roles.
• Effective sales metrics – Focusing on appointment ratios and closing rates over just activity counts.
• Driving leadership buy-in – Challenges in convincing sales leadership to adopt new methods.
• Hiring for business development mindset – What to look for in sales hires and how to train them.
• And much, much more …

Listen to the episode.

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Related links and resources

Connect with Mike LaRusso

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